Ellison Park Cyclocross

Today I went to a cyclocross race just down the street from my house at Ellison Park. My teammates Jeff and Katina (Jeffina) went too. Katina raced while Jeff and I cheered her on. It turns out her rear brake was misaligned and the wheel could not even spin freely by the time she finished. She stuck it out though and had a strong race despite it.

I watched pretty carefully because I don't want to be "that guy" when I do my first cross race and wipe out over the barriers. It's crazy the amount of technique the seasoned riders have when they're mounting and dismounting. Some racer's rigs made no noise at all when they set them down, and what was even more impressive is the lack of noise when they clipped in. It was a good opportunity to take note of the little things like that before I give it a go.

The Brick

Went for a spin on the brick today. What's the brick you might ask? It's my 35lb, 6.5 inch travel beater rig I train on all winter.

It's got a rear wheel that doesn't spin unless I pedal, and unless I keep my cadence just right it makes noises so wretched people flag me down to try and help me. Hahahahah. It's not fast, but it will make you fast! Check out the sick custom Brick Crankskins though! Not having ridden it since April I forgot how hard it makes me work. Zero rest time. Even on the downhills it's got to be pedaled or it will drift to a stop. Stoked to be back on it, but really anxious to get my cross rig so I can start to work on my endurance and forget about power for a while.

Lol-a ride like that would be a joke on the Blue. On The Brick though-what a workout! 

Crank The Shield 2010

I thought a fitting way to kick off my blogging would be to post a Crank The Shield 2010 summary. As I get the time i'm going to further populate this site, get additional pages completed and refine the template. I think I like it (the template). We'll see. I'm sure it will evolve. Lol-just what I need-another endless time consumer to fit somewhere in between rides. 

Crank The Shield 2010 

http://www.crankstheshield.com/

Sep 17, 18, 19 Haliburton Forest, ON

3-day stage race 250km

Garmin Data

I can not put into words how amazing it was to crank the shield. Three days of insane trails linked together by treacherous bogs, insane fire roads/atv trails and your usual dirt and paved road breathers. Seriously...this was the craziest race i've ever done. At times I was unsure if I should have gone, but looking back on it i'm glad I manned up and finished it out. Two sprained ankles and mouthfuls of bog but we'll get into that later. There was no shortage of former, present, and future pros, olympians, national team members, ect. that came out to race and it was pretty neat to race the same course and chat with them.

Departure

As is the norm the second EJ (Cranskins) and I departed the rain started. That's just the way it goes. Our drive up was uneventful and unusually smooth. We had to stop for directions about an hour away when the GPS hucked us, but other then that just an easy trip. It was early Thursday evening  when we pulled into the Haliburton Forest Wildlife Reserve and the clouds were still in tow. Ernesto (solo goat) traveled from Ohio to race with us and pulled in soon after us. I had met him briefly at a race earlier in the summer and was looking forward to meeting up again. He's one of the best racers in the country and doesn't seem to mind a brain picking too much. It was a great opportunity for me to watch and learn and I was stoked.

Pre-race night

Much of the time I prefer to camp the night preceding races more then two-three hours away, as does EJ. We backed the van up to the woods next to the tree line and the three of us cracked a few american brews as we began setting up camp. It wasn't long before out of no where we were surrounded by growling huskies and wolves. WTF!!! They belonged to a Canadian lady from the near by Wolf reserve, who responded to my inquiry as to their biting habits in a thick French accent with "that is not the concern." "You must have permission to camp here." "You must go away." (Keep in mind we're not the only ones there) I wanted to camp there out of spite, as I knew it was alright, but EJ didn't want the conflict and as usual wanted to do the right thing. Darn! Anyways-it turned out for the best because rather then camp out in the cold rain we ended up bunking with some great people in a very nice cabin thanks to the guys at Chico Racing. After a quiet romantic dinner the three of us were joined by the rest of our bunk mates. Some racers, media crew members, support staff, and others. We had a few brews, told some stories by the fire and called it a night.

Stage 1 - 5th

I'm an early riser so I enjoyed my usual relaxed cup of coffee, sunrise, and people watching that morning. It's always interesting to watch everyone at these events getting ready. You can tell the pros from the joes, the ocd color-coded check list makers (lol-that's me) from the bring everything and figure it out when the time comes people, the family, fans, and event staff. It really gets me pumped watching the organized (and some times un-organized) chaos. Not to mention that piney wilderness morning smell that fills the crisp Canadian air. I was in heaven and couldn't stand still any longer. I'm still not too experienced with starts, and there were pros and big names a few lines deep at the front of the start line so I settled into the line up about half way back for each stage. Soon after the start I found myself hiking the bike up a switch back cliff trail after passing the majority of the riders in front of me. This was nuts and I soon realized how serious this terrain is. People couldn't even hike up the stuff without falling and helping each other. I had just put some metal toe spikes in so I made my way up and continued on my way. Soon the bogs began. I'm talkin' waste and some times chin deep bogs scattered over miles of gnarly, dangerous terrain. I then sprained both of my ankles when I caught them on some rocks at the bottom of a bog and was in extreme pain for the rest of stage 1. Good thing though-the water and bogs were so cold my ankles went numb and I was able to ride strong. To make things worse after pulling back into the race despite the injuries I took a wrong turn that cost me 4th place and landed me in 5th just 1km from the finish. When I arrived at the finish Peter (Misfit Cycles) who i'd passed minutes before I got lost was there to ask me where the heck I went off to. He had a good laugh about it as did pretty much everyone there. I guess they were laughing with me-kind of. Haha.

Stage 2 - 4th

The night before at the post-dinner meeting Sean Ruppel described stage 2 as a death march, and made it very clear how awful conditions really were. It turns out the shield had received three times it's normal rain fall this summer and we had hours more of bogs dividing gnarly rock faces ahead of us. I was not looking forward to this stage as I could barely walk, but I just took it slow in the hike-a-bike sections being careful not to make things any worse. Then i'd get on the bike and just rage. My average speed on the bike was almost 10mph. What a blast. I was having a good time shooting the sh*t with Peter again when out of nowhere I took a wrong step crossing a bog and went completely under, swallowing way too much of the bog, and was so shocked and grossed out that I hopped on the bike and raged my way into 3rd place, dropping everyone that was anywhere near me. I held third for the rest of the race, with 4th about 5 minutes back. At the end of the stage there was a long road section though, and although I hit 49.7mph descending one hill I could not hold him off. He had a big ring, and I had EJ's XX gearing, which just couldn't cut it on the road. He stormed past me about 5k from the finish and I soon lost sight of him on a slight downhill as I could do nothing but tuck while he cranked away on his big ring. By the time we got to the single track it was too late and there was not enough trail for me to catch him. He was a very strong rider from Angry Johnny/Cycle Solutions, and he rode me in to the ground. He ended up 2 minutes ahead of me and although i'm bummed mad props go to him for being so strong. Angry Johnny is one of the coolest guys you'll meet and I always look forward to crossing paths with him up north. He's got the best racers in Canada, literally. Until we meet again...

 

Stage 3 - 4th

Stage 3 is the day everyone looks forward to. It's got the craziest climbs, most ridiculous decents, and downright glorious trail. Because of the rainfall there were still miles of mud and a bunch of bogs, but nothing like the first two stages. I started almost at the back for this stage as I knew it would start off by climbing the Sir Sam's ski resort mountain twice with a super d course in between. I took my time and kept it in zone 2 for this part of the race. I had fun hitting the jumps and dh lines in the super d while everyone blew up trying to jockey for position at the front. Right after all of the ski resort chaos a 20km road section began. This was my kind of road section, and I planned to use it to my advantage. I'd already memorized the elevation profile months before. The hills were moderate, none too steep with long gradual downhills. As expected people were hopping into pace lines and working together, but I had other plans, especially after being asked to leave one team's pace line since I was a solo racer. Haha, their mistake-I sprinted the entire 20k, passed almost everyone in front of me, dropped them like a bad habit and pulled into the top 20 overall just 15 minutes behind the National and world riders by aid station 2. I was so stoked and just rode as fast as I could make the bike go without wrecking the entire stage. No pace. Just wide open the whole way after Sir Sam's. The long walking sections killed my time, but that's to be expected with two ankle sprains...whine whine whine. No XXcuses! I think I must have had about 10 goo shots and 100 ounces of E-load and I didn't even feel fatigued. Although I got my butt kicked by plenty of awesome riders young and old, finishing fourth in my group overall was a giant success for me and i'm super encouraged now. I could barely walk, and still have two swollen purple ankles as I write this so i'm feeling very content with my sense of accomplishment. I can see that my training the past year has really paid off, so i'm stoked to keep working even harder. Not to mention-I didn't even wreck once. There's no CTS in 2011, but in 2012 i'm going back with plans to podium. That's right Angry Johnny-i'm ANGRY for the podium!!!!!! I'm comin' for you in 2012!

Waiting for our post stage gourmet buffet 

Study that map!

Test Post

Again, another test. Gotta make this lengthy to see how the template scales. Gotta make a bunch of lebels, ect.



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maybe a photo from CTS 2010:

Gotta get this thing working!


Let's see...